One afternoon in late 2015, I opened my inbox to see an invitation from a colleague at the University of Toronto asking me to take part in a dialogue with Richard Dawkins.

The Richard Dawkins. Arguably the most well-known atheist in the world. The man who’d practically trademarked disbelief in God. One of the so-called ‘Four Horsemen of the New Atheism’. And a man who had once almost mowed me down on his bicycle as I crossed an Oxford street. (Clearly, Richard doubted not only God, but also the sanctity of zebra crossings; not everything for him was black and white).

When that email landed, I’d just written The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist, a book responding (philosophically, practically, and playfully) to the most popular arguments of Dawkins and his other New Atheist teammates: Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. So the idea of sparring with one of them live on stage? It was terrifying but also thrillingly exciting.